In the 1960s, at the height of the Cold War, some American military strategists argued in favour of a pre-emptive strike against the former Soviet Union. The rationale was that the United States stood a good chance of crippling the Soviet nuclear arsenal, and might suffer comparatively little damage in return. Today, Israel’s government is considering a roughly comparable gambit with Iran.

Notwithstanding all the Iranian pronouncements to the contrary, it is widely accepted that the Iranians are building a nuclear bomb — just as it’s widely accepted that Israel already has one. In a short time, the Iranians will have finished moving all their bomb-making equipment into impregnable underground locations. At that point, they can take their own sweet time building their bomb; six months or six years won’t make a difference. The world will know they have succeeded, the hawks warn us, when a mushroom cloud appears over Tel Aviv — or Washington, D.C.

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But there is another side to it. If Israel were to attack Iran, it would pay dearly. Such a high-risk, long-range operation could easily backfire, triggering huge military, diplomatic and economic fallout for Israel. Reprisals by Iran and its Islamic proxies could lead to thousands of casualties in Israel, widespread international scorn and diplomatic isolation. Iran and its terrorist supporters would likely also go after oil facilities and tankers, wreaking financial havoc across the globe. Israel would be blamed. Such an attack also would cause the Iranian people, including the various disparate pro-democracy opposition groups, to close ranks and unite behind the regime in Tehran.

What tips the argument against the hawks is the fact that many experts say efforts to stop Iran from attaining nuclear weapons will ultimately fail. “The attack [would] not stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons,” says noted Israeli analyst Barry Rubin. “What’s the point of an attack that doesn’t achieve its stated goal? Iran will get nuclear weapons. Iran is not going to stop its nuclear drive (though it could stop short of actually building bombs or warheads ready to go).”

But if Israel — and maybe even the United States — are powerless to permanently end the Iranian nuclear program using force, what can they do?

Aside from the obvious — diplomatic and economic sanctions, both of which appear to be taking their toll on the Iranian regime — there is something that Benjamin Netanyahu can do: Remove a possible pretext for Iranian sabre-rattling against Israel by reaching a political agreement with West Bank Palestinians. Far from constituting “appeasement,” this would further a goal that Israeli and American leaders, including no less a hawk than George W. Bush, have embraced as a stated goal for years. If the Netanyahu government were to take bold steps to negotiate a peace agreement with the Palestinians, then the Iranians would lose any moral or political justification for launching a first strike against Israel, or even empowering regional terrorist proxies to do so.

No one is talking about this now, because the rhetoric and mindset of Western leaders is understandably oriented toward intimidating Iran into submission. Iran itself, with its bellicose rhetoric, has encouraged such militant postures. Indeed, the Mullahs may even welcome a Western military strike, since it might help unify a country that is otherwise fed up with dictatorship and international isolation. But if our ultimate goal is to promote peace and security, especially for Israel, a more far-sighted approach might be worth considering.

National Post

Michael Dan is the honorary chairman of The Canadian Peres Center For Peace. Arie Raif is the vice-chairman of The Canadian Peres Center For Peace, and a former Israeli diplomat and political activist.